Exhibition To Recall June 4 Crackdown Opens

The Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements in China has opened an exhibition to commemorate the June 4 Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989.

The exhibition at the Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre in Shek Kip Mei – which will run till June 10 – features an evaluation of China’s forty years of reform and displays three declassified documents about the June 4 incident.

One of the documents is from the British embassy in Beijing in 1989 – which puts the figure of the fatalities during the crackdown at around 10,000 people.

The official death toll released by the mainland government was about 200, while the Chinese Red Cross had said 2,700 people died in the bloody crackdown.

The chairman of the alliance, Albert Ho, said he feels Hong Kong people have the moral obligation to uphold the truth of history.

He said the alliance won't be intimidated by a comment made by the local NPC deputy Tam Yiu-chung, who said people advocating "the end of one party's dictatorship" may be banned from elections.

He said Tam had "made a fool of himself" for making those comments, because even the Chinese Communist Party claims itself to be leading the central government with the help of other parties.

Ho added that the alliance has raised around HK$10 million so far to set up a permanent June Fourth museum. But he told RTHK's Jimmy Choi that it is still not enough for the group to purchase a place for the purpose.

The museum in Tsim Sha Tsui closed down in 2016 after tenants in the commercial building in which it was housed said the organisers breached regulations that said the premises could only be used for offices. But the museum organisers say they were forced out for political reasons.